


Keep My Head Above Water

by decaying_orbit



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Character Death, Gladiators, Growing Up, Religion, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaying_orbit/pseuds/decaying_orbit
Summary: Bracken Farfell is the pillar of the party- an immovable object that seems to be full of strange contradictions.History puts it into perspective, though.Alternatively:The story of Bracken Farfell and how she went from a slave, stolen from a halfling community by the sea to a Paladin of the dwarven god Torag.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally just the backstory for my pathfinder beta character that I never get to talk about and wrote because I was trying to put off doing my essay for art history. So. There's that.  
> It's going to be updated in chapters if anyone cares because it was a lot more involved then I originally thought. There is no schedule it will literally just be when I feel like there is a good break in the story to stop.  
> Thanks for checking it out!

Looking back, it hurts how quickly her life was completely upended.

Humans raid their village. They swarm their community of Halflings, yelling things in a strange tongue that is not common and they cause destruction as they go. Chaos erupts, buildings are on fire and people are screaming and running into the forest. Bracken runs with her little sister, Thistle, dodging between allies that are difficult for the humans to get through carrying Thistle close to her chest. Desperation claws at her chest, thick and heavy and she’s slowed by the weight of her sister crying into her neck. They won’t make it out of the village this way. She knows they won’t- she’s too heavy, Bracken can’t outrun the humans- so she does what she can, sprinting for a hiding spot to keep them safe.

It’s one that the children made for hide and seek, hidden behind the well and covered by a loose layer of dirt. Bracken gets there, clawing desperate for the ring to lift the trapdoor up where there is a space, just barely small enough for her. When she opens it, she realizes that it’s just small enough for _her_. It won’t fit both of them.

Bracken looks at Thistle, back to the village, back to the hiding spot. Then she pushes her sister inside and whispers, _“don’t make a sound and don’t leave, I’ll come back for you”_ before closing the top of the door and covering it with dirt. Looking over her shoulder for any of the humans, she races for the other direction, praying to whatever deity is listening that she can find someone who can help, or someone she can help.

In the end, that’s actually what causes the problem. She finds another child, the Tanglewood’s son, who is crying on the ground, his parents nowhere to be seen. It’s not an active decision so much as a need to grab him, and carry him. That means she’s weighed down again though, and when the human grabs her hair and pulls she lets out a scream and accidentally drops the baby. The human, a man with rough hands holding a scimitar, laughs, yells something in the strange language before she kicks him in the shins and claws at him so he lets her go. He yelps, releases her hair. She dives for the baby. Other humans are coming and she realizes she’s going to have to make a choice.

Stay or leave the baby.

Like her sister, like grabbing the boy to begin with, it’s not even a choice she even makes.

Bracken Farfell is captured, taken with the humans along with twenty other children they had managed to grab for her village. They are marched to a ship, waiting on the shore a day and a half journey away. The morning after, they are with the group a different man looks over them, takes in the fearful expressions of the children, pausing at Bracken and the baby she holds to her chest.

“That one’s too young,” he yells out in common, “why’d you grab it?”

“The girl holdin’ it wouldn let ‘im go. She coulda run but didn leave ‘im. Though we might as well get two insteada jus one,” One of the men who grabbed her yells. There are only two women in the group before them, one looks over sharply at that.

“Well, get rid of it, we ain’t taking care of babies here.”

Someone goes to grab the Tanglewood child from her and she screams “NO!” in common, fighting as much as she can with her neck and wrists shackled. She kicks and bites and screams until the human hits her in the head with the weapon he’s carrying, a maul, she thinks vaguely from the ground dazed and bleeding. They’ve taken the baby, who has started crying as he’s lifted away. “Give him back!” She yells, struggling to her feet, lunging in the direction of the screaming only to be kicked over. Turning over on her side, she coughs and coughs as the wind was knocked out of her. Getting to her feet is even harder the second time. Blood is trickling down her face, she bit her lip and her mouth tastes like copper. Everything is unsteady, but she still tries to take off balanced and jerky steps.

When she lifts her head, trying to see what they’ve done with him, she finds herself looking directly up into the man who gave the order to take him away. He’s their leader, the one who had been appraising them. He looks like he just found an unexpected treasure.

“Look at this one,” he takes her chin in one of his hands, turning her head from side to side. She snarls as best she can with shaking hands and while out of breath. “ _You_ are exactly what I’m looking for.”

Bracken doesn’t know what that means but thinks that it can’t be good.

He looks over his shoulder, back to where they’re holding the toddler and says with too much casualness, “Kill him.”

“No!” She jerks her head back, out of his grasp, reaching her hands up as the man holding the baby shrugs and snaps his neck.

She stares for several long seconds, mind blank before fury rises in her veins. With a wordless cry, blood on fire, she tries to hit the leader. It won’t change anything, but it feels like it will. It will feel like she’s making a difference. Of course, she can’t do anything. He’s so much bigger and she is weak. He grabs her by manacled wrists, raising her off the ground, and grins.

“This one,” he says quietly to the woman who is standing beside him, who has been silent the entire time, “ _she’s_ why we search these villages. She’s a survivor.” He drops her to the ground and says “Shackle her ankles too, don’t want this one to get away.

They get to their ship later that day and leave, sailing across the sea. It isn’t the first time Bracken has seen the ocean, but it’s the first time she’s been on a boat as big as this one. It would be a marvel if she weren’t shoved into the hull with the twenty other children and shackled to the wall. There’s a girl who is small beside her, probably close to Thistle’s age, crying. Many of them are crying. Bracken looks around, she’s one of the older ones. Maybe four others that are around her age. It makes sense. The little ones played together and were slower. So much easier to grab then the rest of them.

“I’ll protect you,” she vows, saying the words out into the quiet of the hull, “I will do everything I can to protect all of you.”

The girl beside her looks up and Bracken offers her a smile, the most reassuring she can muster under the circumstances. The girl smiles back tentatively, eyes still watery. Bracken’s arms have been chained behind her back, unlike the rest of them, but she nudges the girl with her foot. “I’ll protect you,” she whispers, certainty settling in her chest. She would do everything she could, so they would get home safe and sound.


	2. Bar the Windows and the Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bracken and her fellow halflings make the journey to their final destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has gotten 3 total hits and let me tell y'all that's three more hits than I thought it would get. So thank you, to those three people (or one person who read it three times) for reading this.

Bracken does what she can to comfort the others, she sings, she initiates word and guessing games, she tells stories and jokes that she can think of. It does little, but every once in a while, there is a laugh of a smile. Just enough to keep them from sinking completely despair.

“This is hopeless!” An older boy snaps one day, “We’re going to either die here or be sold into slavery! Stop trying to make it better.”

The silence that follows is thick as Bracken swallows the rush of anguish and powerlessness that is common in her these days before she quietly responds, “Even the word ‘hopeless’ is not devoid of hope.” It was something her mother had told her once, to remember when things didn’t go her way or it seemed like nothing was going right. It was more appropriate now that ever.

It takes the boy aback, that’s for certain. He looks at her curiously, then lets out a long sigh. When the other children are sleeping later, he comes to sit by her. She thinks she would have gone to speak with him earlier, but her chains are attached to the wall and she can barely get far enough away to not be lying in her own filth. 

“I’m sorry, for what I said earlier.” They’ve been slowly learning each other’s names and she knows that his is Mateo. Bracken shrugs, leaning her head against the wall behind her.

“Don’t be sorry,” she answers, staring at the ceiling, glad that they’ve gotten used to the rocking.

“You know it’s true though, don’t you? What I said earlier.”

She wishes that he didn’t ask, her eyes slide shut, and she takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly through her nose.

“I know.”

That was why it was so devastating, his remark earlier. Because it was the thing that they all knew, even the youngest of them had an inkling of. Mateo hadn’t been the only one to think it, just the first to say it. There would be others, in outbursts of anger and dismay, who would bring it up later. But he was the first and it had been the truth, the one that they all avoided.

When they make it to shore (finally, after what feels like years at sea) they are herded out and onto the ground in a port. It’s strange being on solid ground. Bracken can feel herself swaying to despite the earth being steady beneath her. It’s like her first days on the ship. Weeks (months?) ago she would have been fascinated by this comparison, wondering at how it was. Now, she was more concerned on what was to happen next as she was hit with the butt of an axe to start walking forward, chained at the neck to all the other children around her.

They are in a taken through the docks into the city. People around them are shouting in the strange tongue that the humans who captured them did. Most of the people around them are human. Every so often, she spots an elf, who walk by with their heads held high, with a grace she couldn’t even hope to match with the awkward gait the shackles at her ankles force her to walk with. Half-elves and dwarves are a bit more common than elves. There is a half-orc too. She only sees one other Halfling, who freezes at the sight of them, eyes round and mouth agape.

Tugging them along, the leader whose name she has strangely never learned and who they only referred to as Captain, takes them into a building under heavy guard. It’s shocking that, once inside, they are met with a group of mostly women, who Captain addresses in the tongue here, gesturing, before they’re pulled into a back room and neck chains are unlocked. The wrist (and her ankle manacles) cuffs remain. The door is locked behind them, so it’s probably no concern if they will actually be able to escape or not, especially with as many guards as there were. In the room, there is a pool of water that is large by their standards, but not so much by the human’s. One-by-one, the women pull them forward, removing their ruined clothing before pushing them gently into the water to scrub them clean.  
Bracken watches as the women almost fuss over them. Brushing their hair, helping put on new clothing. Captain is with them, unlocking the cuffs for the brief moments it takes to get arms through the sleeves of new, clean clothing, before chaining them back in line again.

It takes time to for her turn to come, as she is the last to go. She doesn’t fight when they get to her, allowing them cut off her clothing and clean her without protest. They brush her hair, checking it for lice, talk amongst themselves about gods only know what. One of them notices the ankles chains as she is helped into the water and says something to the Captain.

He looks over at them, meeting her gaze, announcing in common, “She’s a fighter.”

It causes a slight stir among the woman caring for her, as they eye her a bit more cautiously now. Bracken doesn’t say anything, though she glares at any of them who stare at her. 

Once she is dressed and in place in line they are trooped through the city once more. Being taken to be sold, she thinks. Hopefully some of them will end up together. Hopefully there will be people she can save, that she can keep from harm. She won’t be able to do that if they’re all separated.  
Of course, when they arrive to their destination, she finds herself wishing that they were sold as just slaves instead. That, she thinks, would be easier than this.

Because they don’t arrive at a market or an auction like she was expecting. Instead they are taken to a colosseum, marched underneath until Captain greets another man, gesturing to them. They clasp hands like friends and talk animatedly. The woman who stood beside the captain when he first appraised them is there as well, standing stoically to the side as the men talk. Bracken’s eyes flick between, trying to discern anything that they’re saying. She doesn’t understand a word of this language, though, it’s all for naught.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because the new man addresses them directly. 

“Hello, children,” he begins and Bracken immediately hates him just because of his voice, which is making her feel a little sick, “Welcome to Andra, it is good to see that so many of you made it in well enough condition.” His eyes sweep over them, pausing for a beat longer on some of the older boys and her, before he continued his speech, “My name is Colbert Reinwald, you may address me as ‘sir’ or Lord Reinwald. I am happy to welcome you to our fair city and to further welcome you to my arena.

“I know that this must be confusing for you all, but just know that you will not have to travel anymore, you will be taken care. Everything from here on will be simple, really. Do well and as you’re told- you’ll be rewarded. Disobey, do poorly, or try to run away- you’ll be punished, possibly killed. Listen, and obey.” He gives them a look over again, “Today you’ll rest, you’ve had a long, harrowing journey. I’m sure this is overwhelming. Tomorrow, you’ll begin to work. This is your keeper, Lady Leyh. She will be the one to oversee you and report back to me. Good night, I will see you all in the morning.”

It’s strange how Lord Reinwald is just able to walk away, as though he hadn’t just announced that he had taken some twenty odd children captive and would possibly kill them if they went against his wishes. As it were, the guards take them to rooms, which must be so small for humans because they’re small to her, separating them.

“Why can’t we stay together?” She asks Leyh. Most of the manacles had been taken off, all except for her and two of the other older ones. One of the little ones is grabbing at her shirt, clutching it while hiding behind her.

“Because that’s the way it works.” Lady Leyh’s expression is made of stone, unmoving and unswayed. It’s impressive, but more so Bracken just wishes her own face could do  
that so that it wouldn’t be given away how desperate she must be to stay with them all.

Bracken is going to protest more, going to argue and fight, but Leyh snaps her fingers, saying something that she doesn’t understand (and isn’t that so frustrating, she needs to learn this language as soon as she can). A guard picks her up by the wrists, tossing her into the room to the left. The door locks from the outside, heavy with a thunk.

It says something about the way her life has been these past few months that she can easily get to her feet despite her hands being manacled behind his back. They haven’t been off the boat for more than a few hours. She’s still rocking, still too anxious to rest and sleep, so she walks around the room, hoping it will make her feel more stable. The room is simple. There’s a bed with a thin mattress (a mattress, she never thought she’d be so grateful for just that simple comfort) and a metal bucket that she can assume the use for. A Single shelf is up on the wall, what she would guess three feet above her head. The room is bare aside from these things. She counts her steps instead, eighteen down and eighteen across. A perfect square, though she doesn’t know what to do with this information.

There’s little she can really do. Bracken paces more, counts her steps and her strides. Tries to measure time based on that. There is a window to the door, the only source of light (but that doesn’t matter, she can see in the dark anyway. Been living in the dark so long that any light feels precious). Eventually, that grows dimmer until it feels as though there is rare candlelight filtering through. It’s at that time that she lays down on the bed, sighing in satisfaction at the mattress rather than the hard boards of ships. It took maneuvering to move the blanket on the bed up. She falls asleep within moments, more comfortable even with her bruised and aching wrists now than she had been in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Listen and Obey" is actually something that my parents would say to me and my sisters when we were little. I recently realized how sort of creepy it is.  
> I also totally stole the hopeless quote from Trollhunters and I am not sorry about it at all.


End file.
